On March 28th, the New York Times implemented a new subscription plan for consumers of its online newspaper. Readers who enjoy visiting the Times’ website will now have limits imposed on their free access to content of the site. Visitors will be able to read 20 free articles from the Times’ website per month, but on the 21st attempt, they will directed to a page asking the user to subscribe to one of three digital subscription options for the website, mobile app or tablet app. Subscriptions start at $15 for four-week access to content on the New York Times website.

Students, faculty and staff still have full access to the New York Times current content through several Milne Library databases:
• From 1980-present in: Lexis Nexis Academic and ProQuest National Newspapers
• From 1985-present in: Academic OneFile, Opposing Viewpoints in Context, Gale General One File, InfoTrac Newsstand, and Newspaper Source Plus
• From 6 months ago-present we have a print newspaper subscription; today’s copy resides in Books’n’Bytes café

For those students and faculty who use the New York Times Article Archive, the articles previously available from pre-1923 and post-1986 on the New York Times website will be subject to the 20 article per month limit. Milne Library owns the microfilm of the entire run of the New York Times back to 1857 for those interested in articles pre-1923.

Photo by: Flickr user sjsharktank

At this time, there is no site license available for an institution-wide subscription to the digital content of the New York Times website, but the publisher indicated they are working on a licensing model for institutions such as colleges and libraries, to be introduced in the near future.

Readers who use search engines such as Google or Yahoo and are directed to content on the New York Times website will be limited to reading 5 free articles per day, but if you are in Facebook, on Twitter or visiting other social media sites such as blogs, you will be able to view and read articles for free. These will not count toward the monthly limit.

Topics ranged from trends and “social reference” (and how libraries fit into it) to “iPhone/Mobile Applications for Digital Library” to building a mobile site to mobile tagging, including QR codes and were included in topic tracks for Mobile Reference Service, E-readers, Mobile Apps, Marketing, Websites, and Content for Library Mobile Sites.

Currently Milne offers very basic access through our Milne Library Mobile page. Have you used the mobile page? What was your experience like? If Milne were to offer extended mobile services, would you use them? If so, what would be the kinds of information and services you’d like to have access to through your cell phone? Tell us in the comments!

Our research guides are now easier to use, with more resources and multimedia content.

Milne librarians have been working over the intersession to implement a new system for connecting users to important resources: LibGuides. The new system allows for easy creation of subject and class-related guides. It also allows librarians to incorporate a wider array of content than our previous system, including images, video and RSS feeds to provide subject-specific news and research headlines.

LibGuides pages replace the Resources by Subject pages previously used to help identify scholarly materials.

The main search box on the library homepage has been updated to make use of a new Beta Catalog developed by libraries in the IDS project.

This search engine allows users to search for books and media here in Milne, in IDS Project libraries (these items can be delivered in less than 3 days) or in libraries around the world (these books may take 7 to 10 business days to arrive).

New and improved features include:

Spell checking for misspelled search terms

Estimated time of arrival for items not held in Milne Library

RSS feeds for searches

The ability to export items to citation software (like EndNote or Zotero)

A quick link to create citations for each record.

Our new Catalog is still in a Beta testing phase, so please provide us with any feedback about your searches.

The Quicksearch box on the library home page now uses WorldCat Local. This search tool quickly finds books, articles, and materials held in Milne Library and in other libraries across the country.

Unlike Google which searches billions of web sites of unknown authority, WorldCat Local (containing 55 million articles) provides items from reputable databases that the library subscribes to. Search results can be narrowed to specific databases and refined by author, format, year, language, and content. Items not available in Milne or online are easily obtainable using Get Text/IDS service.

While students were away on Spring Break, we’ve been busy!Thanks to the students, faculty and staff who completed surveys in Fall 2007, the Milne Library Web Team has implemented several design changes which grew out of these recommendations. Improvements include:

Consolidation of QuickLinks on the library homepage and less clutter!

Removal of much of the text from the side columns on the homepage

Addition of direct links to our most “Popular Resources” — right from the homepage!

Spacing of individual news stories farther apart (making them easier to read) and adding an RSS feed for New Books to the bottom of blog’s column. This also has the added benefit of keeping RSS feeds in one column.

New color choices for main page.

The addition of a “Bookmark” badge to all library webpages, thus increasing Web 2.0 functionality to our website and allowing users to bookmark our pages easily.

Removal of underlining for hyperlinks.

Tell us what you think – we want your feedback! If you have questions about any of the changes made to the library website, please contact Kate Pitcher, Web Development Librarian, at pitcher@geneseo.edu or by phone at 245-5064.